NATO Research Vessel (NRV) Alliance successfully led a task group devoted to autonomous surveillance, including four AUV teams which operated 179 vehicle-hours.

The NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation conducted a scientific trial as part of the Italian MINEX 2014 from 6 to 23 May 2014, off the Italian coastline from Framura to Viareggio. The main purpose of the trial was to analyse the performance of modern minehunting systems in different seabed conditions, in order to provide guidance to NATO nations on how to optimize the use of these systems. The mission fitted perfectly in the exercise scenario simulating mine countermeasures operations to guarantee maritime security in coastal and very shallow water when there is presence of naval mines and asymmetric threats.

The participation in ITMINEX'14 is the most realistic CMRE mine countermeasures exercise to date, whose results will guarantee extensive systems performance data collection to support CMRE daily research. NRV Alliance operated for the first time as command platform during a NATO exercise.